I bought a Pro-100 several weeks ago when Adorama had it for $100AR with free paper. For that price, I thought it would be worthwhile to get some additional control and convenience over my prints. So far I've made about 30 prints (mostly 8x10) and the indicators still show everything as full. Does it drop like a cheap car fuel gauge or something? I.e. 300 miles to half tank, 350 miles to 1/4 tank, 10 miles to Empty!

I have a Pro-10 and the ink levels drop fast in my use.

I have some 13 x 19 prints I have done, and those are quite a bit bigger than 4 x 6 or 8 x 10. Could ba a "duh" moment, or maybe I had different expectations.

I think I have done about 10 each 13 x 19 and probably 20 8.5 x 11 and maybe a dozen 4 x 6, and I'm through the starter inks and getting into a 3rd change on some.

The Pro-10 cartridges have an ink volume of 14ml and cost ~$16 each.

The Epson 3800 cartridges have an ink volume of 80ml and cost ~$60 each.

Simply based on volume and OEM ink costs, Canon is $91.42 for 80ml of ink (5.7 Canon cartridges for 80ml). This doesn't account for wasted ink during cartridge replacement. Six cartridges = $96. Both printers don't use the same number of ink cartridges, so a direct comparison is difficult.

There is a print cost comparison at Red River Papers, and the Canon is roughly 2x Epson per print in their testing.

Thanks for the detailed reply and that's some interesting math! I have owned several Epson printers over the years and have never been happy with the color, even after extensive calibration. The Canon profiles and ability to print in 16-bit color aren't perfect, but MUCH closer than any of my calibrated Epson's ever were. Being able to make a single print versus many to get the color right is going to save me a lot of money.

Thanks for the detailed reply and that's some interesting math! I have owned several Epson printers over the years and have never been happy with the color, even after extensive calibration. The Canon profiles and ability to print in 16-bit color aren't perfect, but MUCH closer than any of my calibrated Epson's ever were. Being able to make a single print versus many to get the color right is going to save me a lot of money.

The first few prints out of my new to me printer weren't so good. I used the modified version of the Atkinson Test Print that is available for free online.

The print done with the Canon Pro-10 was stunning.

First print from Epson 3800 was bleh. More like WTF because the demo print that was done for me was absolutely stunning on the same Canon paper. The person I bought the printer from sells prints for a living, so I bet he had it dialed in...

Then I found a new revision for Traditional Photo Paper ICC profiles (10.0 12/09/2013) and PDF instructions on how to use it on the Epson website. Once I followed the instructions for Photoshop, I could not visually differentiate the Epson 3800 output from the pro-10 output- even using an Epson printer to print on Canon photo paper so my stash of buy one get 4 is good .

Similar issues in Lightroom, but once I figured out what profile to use, print output was fantastic.

Even moreso considering that some of the cartridges in the 3800 printer are 3 years old.

Granted, the printer interface for the Pro-10 is much nicer than the Epson, and switching black inks is automatic on the Canon and must be done manually on the 3800.

I highly recommend trying out Epson's Hot Press Bright paper. Epson has a paper sample pack that's worth getting. It has two sheets each of all the press variations, exhibition fiber, etc. I was a glossy paper fan until I tried the press papers. Of course there's a ton of papers from 3rd parties as well.

I may give that a shot.

I did pick up a pack of Canon matte paper, and although I didn't like it at first, the look has grown on me.

I also picked up the Red River sampler pack plus their special media sampler pack.

Once the remaining new inks come in, I'll change them and then do some test prints. I'll probably follow Red Rivers advice and just print the same image on each sampler page for reference.

Printing home is expensive, and ink is only of of several factors, paper being the second most cost-driving issue. I use Canson A3+ paper, and each paper costs me around 7 dollar per print, and with the ink included I reckon a print costs me around 12 dollars. That said, I have complete control over the printing process, and the ability to download or create separate ICC profiles is a very nice feature. I seriously doubt if printing at a professional service would give me better results, maybe with the exception if I were to send my prints to Ilford in the UK.

I print myself, and I am glad to have the 3800.Yes, around €1200 buying it, but then you have the lovely 80ml ink cartridges.

I love to print myself, because of my history having a darkroom in the past century for decades and the control of every step.And: the 3800/3880 are able to go down to 13x18cm (5x7inches) for my album. Cleaning cycles: a necessary PITA, or you have clogging.

Thanks for the detailed reply and that's some interesting math! I have owned several Epson printers over the years and have never been happy with the color, even after extensive calibration. The Canon profiles and ability to print in 16-bit color aren't perfect, but MUCH closer than any of my calibrated Epson's ever were. Being able to make a single print versus many to get the color right is going to save me a lot of money.

I never have to make prints to get the color right with the 3880. As long as I keep my monitor calibrated and choose the correct paper profile, what I see is what I get. I should note that I have setup the lights in my office for proofing prints, both in terms of brightness and color temperature.

I can say the same for Advanced B&W mode with one change: I choose the Dark setting instead of the default (which I believer is Darker). With that one adjustment my B&W prints match my screen and are the equal of anything I used to produce in a darkroom, if not better.

This wasn't the case with past Epson printers I've used, especially when it came to B&W. But the 3880 was calibrated out of the box. And I have yet to encounter a bad paper profile from Epson or any of the 3rd parties.

I did pick up a pack of Canon matte paper, and although I didn't like it at first, the look has grown on me.

Hot Press Bright won me over with the first print. Before that I was partial to glossy and semi gloss / luster papers. Hot Press Bright has the color, saturation, contrast, and deep blacks of glossy papers without the glossy sheen between your eyes and the detail. I love it.

For B&W I like Harman Matt Cotton Smooth a little better. For color, Hot Press Bright. But they are very, very close. If I'm out of one I won't hesitate to substitute the other. Most of what I print to hang on a wall now ends up on one of those two papers.

Okay, so here's the thing... I have a Pixma Pro9000 II, which I have been using for about two years now, and for the same two years I have been repeatedly and increasingly frustrated with its ink usage until I have to hold myself back from throwing the POS out of the window (such as today).

I KNOW I put in brand new cartridges a month ago, and in this interval, I printed maybe 50 black and white pages of text at low quality, and maybe a handful of photos. Now this thing is telling me I'm out of cyan and magenta. WTF?! All other ink levels are more or less full.

Now look, I did not print a handful of cyan and magenta posters this month. We're talking 4x6 balanced exposures here. This sort of random ink depletion happens with other random colors too. In fact, I don't even need to print to see the ink levels drop before my eyes. All I have to do is turn the printer on and off, and the ink is visibly lower than seconds prior! Some drop, while others remain. Tomorrow, when I turn in on, it's probably going to tell me that I'm running low on red, although today it's full.

It costs me around $80 to fill this piece of sheisse up with ink each time, so I'm sure you understand my frustration.

Based on my observations, I have arrived at the following hypotheses:1. Every time the printer does its stupid buzzing and clicking cleaning cycle, it actually sprays geysers of color like Ron Jeremy after eating a kilo of Skittles. 2. My printer heads may dry out periodically because of low humidity or something, and the printer decides to flush the contents of its cartridges to get anything through.3. The ink evaporates.4. Canon deliberately programmed this thing to engage in ink wasting cycles other than printing my photography or timed the cartridges to deplete after a certain period of time.

I'm curious if anyone in this community has ever experienced anything of the sort, and what you have done to remedy this.

You have to print on a very regular basis to get the most out of your ink cartridges. On both Canon and Epson ink jets, if you don't print for a couple of weeks, one of two things WILL happen:

1. The printer will perform a small amount of automatic ink consumption to keep it flowing. 2. The ink will dry out, clog either the cartridge, the ink head, or both.

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"I KNOW I put in brand new cartridges a month ago, and in this interval, I printed maybe 50 black and white pages of text at low quality, and maybe a handful of photos."

^^ THIS ^^ is your problem: "a handful of photos". If you don't print for a while, or print enough often enough, at the very least some ink will be consumed if you have the printer configured to prevent drying (which is usually an option on the higher end models.) Even if you let the printer do it's think to keep ink flowing, if you don't print for long enough (which can be as short as two weeks), the ink WILL start to dry. This is more of a problem with pigments than dyes, but it can happen with both.

A dry ink cartridge will sometimes trigger a change in the tanks chip that makes it tell the printer that it's empty, when it isn't. If that happens, the tank is well and truly gone, dried like a bone. If that doesn't happen, but you are missing a color in your prints, you can try running a couple cleaning cycles to see if that will clear any blockage. Maybe 40% of the time, you can clear up blockage in a dried tank or ink head. Usually, though, once they dry, whether they register as empty or not, they need replacing (again, more so the case with pigments.) Keep in mind that if you do run a couple cleaning cycles, your going to drain ink from that whole bank of tanks. Sometimes it's actually cheaper to just replace the one tank, instead of ending up having to replace five of them.

Also, keep in mind that different color ink is susceptible to drying in different time frames. On my PIXMA Pro9500 II, yellow and magenta tend to dry out quicker than other colors. Gray seems to "seep" more than other colors. The only means I have to combat the issue is to keep printing, so I get my money's worth out of those very expensive 14ml ink tanks. I would also point out that dye inks are pretty runny, and they stay that way so long as they are in solution. Dye is particles suspended in a thinner, where as pigments are emulsions. Dye ink tanks can indeed bleed like a son of a gun if they are not handled properly. You should never pinch a die or pigment ink tank from the sides...even the slightest pressure on a Canon dye tank will result in a significant amount of ink squirting all over the place. I just put some tanks into my MX922, and on one of them, just a little bit of shaking and gravity resulted in two relatively large drops leaking out, ruining my shirt and staining my floor. This is one of the reasons I went with the Pro9500 II, rather than the 9000 II...pigments are a lot easier to handle, and don't squirt out of the tank at all in any circumstance.

Just keep printing. If you have no reason to print, then you might find that a cheaper printer with cheaper ink tanks is more conducive to your needs.

Note: If any of you have the Pixma Pro 100 and have used cartridges, let me know..

You don't want to use third-party refill ink. It is not color compatible, meaning that if you use standard Canon ICC profiles for the paper types you print on, the color will NOT look correct. You wouldn't know there was any difference looking at just the pigment colors themselves in the tanks...but they ARE different enough that they will throw off color balance.

You can solve this problem by generating your own color profiles. A few hundred bucks in equipment, and as much as a thousand dollars in paper and inks, will usually be sufficient to allow you to create decent-quality ICC profiles for your new inks on the variety of papers you use most.

The only way to maintain proper color-correct workflow and ICM for the default ICC profiles created by most paper manufacturers is to stick with official Canon inks.